Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Ronna McDaniel blames the party’s relatively low donation amount for the 2024 election cycle on people “fully committed to their candidate right now.”
The Washington Post on Monday reported that the RNC and other GOP operatives are concerned about the party’s finances less than a year before the next presidential election.
The RNC disclosed that it had $9.1 million in cash on hand as of Oct. 30. That’s the lowest amount for the committee in any Federal Election Commission report since February, 2015.
The Post said the RNC had about $20 million at the same point in the 2016 election cycle, and roughly $61 million in 2020, when Trump ran for reelection.
McDaniel told the outlet that the RNC’s coffer shows that donors are focused on donating to individual presidential candidates.
“I think there’s more donors just fully committed to their candidate right now, saying I am all in, and once the nominee is set, I’ll be there,” she told the Post. “That’s what I hear more than anything. And they’re really solidly in the camps of their candidate, which is normal.
“There’s nothing unusual about this, because they know that once their candidate gets in that we will merge and that we’ll be working together to win the White House.”
Trump currently is the clear front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy also are running to head the party’s national ticket.
Democrats at the moment appear to be in a much better spot than the RNC financially. President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection team and his party said in mid-October that they raised $71 million during the third quarter.
Reuters reported the Democratic Party’s reelection effort had $91 million in cash on hand at the end of September, across several of the party’s affiliated fundraising entities.
Politico reported in September that some top Republican donors were “keeping their wallets closed” because they didn’t want to support Trump and it appeared unlikely someone else could win the nomination.
The Post also reported Monday that the RNC has sent staff members to 15 swing states to focus on get-out-the-vote efforts and election monitoring, and it established a permanent Election Integrity Department. The committee already has filed more than 70 election integrity lawsuits.
“The RNC will continue to communicate with all campaigns and candidates as we look forward to putting our battle-tested infrastructure behind our Presidential nominee,” an RNC spokesperson told the Post.
The RNC under McDaniel has launched the Bank Your Vote program to encourage Republicans to vote early and by mail.
via newsmax
